It's been a long time coming, but now we're back. And this time we'll stay back! The last month or more has been the most frustrating time in Greasy Lake history. Actually, it started months ago when Bruce came out of his hiatus and traffic on this site started to skyrocket again. It became slow and unstable, because the shared server we changed to last year during a very quiet time just wasn't scaled for full tour mode.

So back in April I thought I found the perfect solution with a cross between a shared server and a dedicated server, called a Virtual Personal Server. In the beginning it went fine - even with high traffic - but then it too became slow and unstable and our host started to automatically suspend the site for using too much CPU (processor). That would keep us shut down for a day or three at a time. I messed with all the settings and tried to figure out why it used so much CPU, but every time we were unsuspended it was only a matter of days or hours before we crossed the limit again and the handcuffs went back on. It didn't seem to matter if there were few or many users online. The CPU meter was constantly in the red zone. I tried to upgrade the account to twice the amount of CPU and memory, but if anything it only got worse.

It finally got so bad that I decided to take the step and move the site to a dedicated server. That went pretty well. It took a couple of days to set it up and move all the data. It was when it was time to point the greasylake.org domain to the new server that things started to go really wrong. It was already a hassle back when we moved from the shared server to the VPS a few months ago, but man, what I would have given to have been let off that easily again!

The problem was that the domain registrar was not the same company as the hosting company. In theory that shouldn't be such a big deal, but in this case it was the reason we were offline for more than two weeks. The registrar claimed to have made the necessary updates that would point the domain to the new dedicated server, but for unknown reasons nothing happened. After some arguing back and forth with them, I decided the only way to solve it would be to move the domain registration to the hosting company where I would have total control myself. Unfortunately, that turned out to be a much longer process than I ever thought possible. There's a very high degree of security involved when transferring domains to a new registrar where you must prove you're the rightful owner of the domain and then, after you have proved it, go through a five-day quarantine just in case you want to change your mind.

When the move was finally completed this morning, it took me about 30 seconds to change the settings that made the whole difference and allowed for the site to reappear.

All of this doesn't quite explain why it took as long as it did. I guess it was also a matter of dealing with people for whom Greasy Lake is not life and death. A simple exchange of information would take a couple of days, because the people involved for some reason also had other things to do than helping me. Surely, I've made my share of mistakes too that delayed the process - plus I had an appointment with Bruce in Berlin that couldn't be postponed. But overall, it was done as quickly as possible. However, to say the last month has been frustrating would be the understatement of the year. Especially since I wasn't able to inform people about what was going on, except if you happen to "like" our Facebook page or subscribe to us on Twitter. In that connection, it's been a tremendous help to read the messages of support and understanding from those of you who do frequent Facebook and Twitter. I've heard very few negative comments and that's just amazing.

Anyway, here we are now, on a brand new dedicated server with twice the power as the one we were on until about a year ago and at half the price. Still, it's a whole lot more money than the VPS we left, so fundraisers will probably be more frequent than I would have liked. But I think we can do it.

So welcome to the new Janey server. We can call her Janey the Third. I hope and think she will be the solution to all the problems, but as usual I must warn that there could be hiccups in the beginning while everything is fine-tuned.

Enjoy your swim!

PS, I will be working on new dark and light skins soon, so until then, we'll be using the default skin which is not bad at all and which will remain an option even when the new skins are in place.

"I don't know what I'm gonna find, maybe nothing at all, maybe a world I can call mine"
"The dope's that there's still hope"